


The Scientific Method

by ClementRage



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 20:55:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4494405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClementRage/pseuds/ClementRage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I was a bit pushed for time, sorry about this. I think there's a proper gift en route.</p>
<p>Prompt:</p>
<p>"Something from Vincent's perspective as a Turk, before the Jenova Project."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scientific Method

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RavynneNevyrmore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavynneNevyrmore/gifts).



_‘If they could ever be convinced to work together, we should all be very afraid.’_ **-Veld**

 

When he was first assigned to the Science Department, Vincent questioned how they managed to get any work done at all. These people were obviously absurdly talented individuals, but there were deep divisions in the department that should by all logic have destroyed it. Gast spent his time playing his underlings against each other for the sake of results, and the result was a bizarre fount of deep respect and poisonous hate, and even he, a Turk specifically trained to discern intent, could not determine which, if either, was the façade. It made for a nerve-racking environment to work in, professional assassin or not.

Lucrecia Crescent’s first meaningful interaction with Professor Milton Hojo had occurred when he attempted to tear her thesis to shreds in a scientific journal. Vincent didn’t have the knowledge to determine whether he’d succeeded or failed, but the Professor had earned her respect over dozens of other similar articles for ‘presenting an actual argument’ as opposed to merely sneering. He did not agree with her thesis, but he had understood it, which was apparently more than she could say for anyone else in the world. Two years later, she’d recommended him as a potential recruit to Gast on foot of that. How Hojo reacted to that was as difficult to determine, he could never forget that he owed his position to her, while ultimately considering himself her superior. But despite that dynamic, neither would work with anyone else given the choice.

Gillian Tchaikovsky and Dominic Hollander had met when she’d stabbed a knife through his hand in a bar fight. The situation had escalated from a debate over the reaction of Mako to human tissue, and Hollander had been thoroughly cowed. He was now a firm devotee of her ideals, at least on the surface, but brimmed with knowing hate for his perceived rivals for her attention, consisting of everyone else in the department, and also possibly the world in general.

The Turks were hardly a department known for its stable personalities, but working with Science, even as an observer, was terrifying. Sooner or later, he expected to be asked to kill one of them by one of the others, and there was no way that could hope to end well for anyone involved. Science was traditionally the home of cold, inexorable logic, but Shinra recruited based on raw passion. Somehow, it seemed to work.

Among these passions were of course romance. While most departments had some kind of anti fraternisation regulations, the science department didn’t have any such regulation on the books. There was, however, a rule dictating that any new project intended for use on humans must first be tested on the Science personnel themselves or a member of their immediate family. Shinra didn’t want any projects going forward that the Science staff didn’t have complete confidence in. As it could be difficult to convince relatives or an external partner to procreate in the interests of science, partnerships within the department were not uncommon. Possibly Shinra thought it would channel their misdirected lust into science, or something.

Vincent would likely not have stayed the course (he was growing to understand how senior Turks had sought to avoid this assignment), if not for the presence of Lucrecia Crescent. Shinra considered her the most high value member of staff, and as such Vincent was obliged to spend a significant portion of his on duty time with her. This, at least, was no chore. Even her name was beautiful. There was little that could threaten her deep in the labs, which opened up long stretches of time for conversation while she was waiting for experiments to boil, or whatever it was they did. To both their surprise, he actually understood something of her field of study, largely from half remembered conversations with his father, whose field seemed fairly similar, although she said she’d never met him. The only possible thing he might be called upon to do would be her human shield in the event of exploding machines, although she’d flinched so much the one day he mentioned this that he’d never brought it up again. That one day aside, much of their interaction was amicable, Lucrecia was a scientist that did not treat her bodyguard like furniture. Although he might not be averse to standing in for a pillow now and then.

He was resigned almost immediately to never acting on those feelings, but as her bodyguard, he had enough close contact to be enamoured almost daily by the light in her eyes when she was working, her light step on the stone floor, the glint of sunlight in her hair (not that there was much of that in the lab.) Such sentimentality was generally discouraged in the Turks, but he did not need reminding that acting on any of this would not end well. Her eyes might flick over him with a degree of interest, but it was Hojo that could actually forge a true connection, Hojo who understood her better than literally anyone else could. He could see Lucrecia’s respect growing, growing into genuine affection for the only person that could speak to her on her own terms. Sooner or later they would come to an arrangement. He knew acting on his own feelings was a terrible idea. He did not need reminding… until the question came up.

When it happened, there was no moment where he walked in on her shower or bandaged a cut, no sick day, no near death experience, no drunken kiss or rescue from a stranger in a dark alley. One day, after a long day’s work, as he took up his post outside her room, Lucrecia Crescent took his wrist and drew him inside her door. Neither of them spoke. The taste of her skin drove anything he might have said away, as they both became caught up in a new experiment. And like all experiments, it needed to be repeated as much as possible before conclusions could be drawn.


End file.
